Jump to specific category keyboard shortcut

Contribute Feature

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around finding a keyboard shortcut to jump directly to a specific category on the site. jimkleiber asks how to navigate to a category like #feature after using g,c to reach the categories page, noting that j and k scroll through posts instead of categories. pmusaraj suggests using the search function: typing / followed by the category name (e.g., fea) and selecting the desired category with the arrow keys and Enter. jimkleiber confirms this works, though adding # to the search triggers a category search rather than navigation. jimkleiber then notes that long category names and slugs aren’t easily searchable, prompting pmusaraj to explain that category slugs aren’t indexed, and long names may cause UI issues. jimkleiber acknowledges the challenge of balancing descriptive names with shorter slugs.

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I’ve just started to play around with keyboard shortcuts, as I realized I’m on this site a lot now lol and also that I want to be more efficient for me and for people who may join my communities.

I’ve noticed there’s a way to jump to the categories page g,c but can’t find a way to jump directly to a specific category like Contribute > Feature or even how, after hitting g,c and landing on the category page, that I can cycle through the category options using the keyboard. When I hit j or k it cycle through the latest posts, not the category column.

I’m not sure if this is a support or feature or what, just hoping that it currently exists and if not, then that it would exist :smiley:

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Well, there’s a way to do this using search.

  • / will load the search input
  • then fea (and a half-second wait) will show you categories/tags/users matching fea
  • then arrow down until the chosen item is highlighted, and Enter to go to that page

Does that work well enough?

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Yup! And if I want to go even faster to categories, seems I can put the # in front and should go faster.

Turns out if I add the # then when I arrow down to the item, it has defaulted to searching that category, not jumping to it.

So I’ll just do what you suggested :smiley:

Thank you!

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I’ve noticed that if I do that search, when I type in the category slug, it won’t show up, and I have some really long category names. Perhaps that could be a feature request? :smiley: Or maybe it’s a bug or I’m just missing it somehow.

Any idea?

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We currently don’t index the category slugs, that’s why the search for a slug doesn’t find matches for you. (There are all kinds of other possible UI issues with really long category names.)

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Ah ok, yeah, the long name is something I’ve struggled with. I run something called Emotional Self-Defense and while the slug is ESD, I’ve often debated whether to have it as the full category name (or website or company name), as it lacks the descriptiveness.

Anyway, thank you for the reply!